Chapter Eight

Cooper sat as perfectly still as a hunter in a deer stand. Motionless, feet planted far apart, elbows propped on widespread knees, fingers cupped around his chin. Above them, his eyes stared at her unblinkingly.

That was the first sight Rusty saw when she woke up the following morning. She registered surprise, but managed to keep from jumping out of her skin. Immediately she noticed that the screen she had so ingeniously devised and hung around her bed the night before had been torn down. The blanket was lying at the foot of her bed.

She levered herself up on one elbow and irritably pushed her hair out of her eyes. “What are you doing?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“It snowed several inches last night.”

She studied his expressionless face for a moment, then said with a great deal of pique, “If you’re wanting to build a snowman, I’m not in the mood.”

His eyes didn’t waver, although she could tell that he was willfully restraining himself when he was sorely tempted to strangle her.

“The snowfall is important,” he said calmly. “Once winter gets here our chances of being rescued are greatly reduced.”

“I understand that,” she replied in a serious tone befitting his observation. “What I don’t understand is why it has such grave implications at this very minute.”

“Because before we spend another day together, we’ve got to get some things straight, lay down some ground rules. If we’re going to be marooned up here together all winter—which looks like a very real possibility—then we must reach an understanding on several points.”

She sat up but kept the blanket raised to her chin. “Such as?”

“Such as no more pouting spells.” His brows were drawn together in a straight, stern line of admonition. “I won’t put up with that kind of brattiness from you.”

“Oh, you won’t?” she asked sweetly.

“No, I won’t. You’re not a child. Don’t act like one.”

“It’s all right for you to insult me, but I’m supposed to turn the other cheek, is that it?”

For the first time, he looked away, apparently chagrined. “I probably shouldn’t have said what I did yesterday.”

“No, you shouldn’t have. I don’t know what evil thoughts you’ve cultivated in your dirty little mind, but don’t blame me for them.”

He gnawed on the corner of his mustache. “I was mad as hell at you.”

“Why?”

“Mainly because I...I don’t like you very much. But I still want to sleep with you. And by ‘sleep’ I don’t mean just sleep.” If he had slapped her, she couldn’t have been more astounded. Her lips parted with a sudden intake of breath, but he didn’t give her a chance to say anything.

“Now isn’t the time to beat around the bush or to mince words, right?”

“Right,” she repeated hoarsely.

“I hope you can appreciate my honesty.”

“I can.”

“Okay, concede this point. We’re physically attracted to each other. Bluntly stated, we want to get off together. It doesn’t make any sense, but it’s a fact.” Rusty’s gaze dropped to her lap. He waited until his patience gave out. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Say something for God’s sake.”

“I’ll concede both points.”

He let out a long breath. “All right then, knowing that, and knowing that it’s unreasonable to do anything about it, and knowing, too, that it’s going to be a helluva long winter, we’ve got some things to iron out. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“First, we’ll stop the mudslinging.” Her russet eyes treated him to a frosty stare. Grudgingly he added, “I’ll admit to being guilty of that more than you. Let’s just promise not to be verbally abusive to each other from here on.”

“I promise.”

He nodded. “The weather will be our enemy. A fearsome one. It will require all our attention and energy. We can’t afford the luxury of fighting each other. Our survival depends on living together. Our sanity depends on doing it peaceably.”

“I’m listening.”

He paused to collect his thoughts. “As I see it, our roles should be traditional.”

“You Tarzan, me Jane.”

“Sort of. I’ll provide the food. You’ll cook it.”

“As you’ve so untactfully pointed out, I’m not a very good cook.”

“You’ll get better.”

“I’ll try.”

“Don’t get defensive if I offer you advice.”

“Then don’t make snide remarks about my lack of talent. I’m good at other things.”

His eyes lowered to her lips. “I can’t argue that.” After a long, silent moment, he roused himself. “I don’t expect you to wait on me hand and foot.”

“I don’t expect that from you, either. I want to pull my weight.”

“I’ll help you keep the cabin and our clothes clean.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll teach you to shoot more accurately so you can protect yourself when I’m gone.”

“Gone?” she asked faintly, feeling that the rug had just been pulled out from under her.

He shrugged. “If the game gives out, if the stream freezes over, I might have to go in search of food.”

She would face with fear and dread the times she might have to stay in the cabin alone, perhaps for days. Even a vulgar and insulting Cooper was better than no Cooper at all.

“And this is the most important point.” He waited until he had her full attention, until her dazed eyes had refocused on him. “I’m the boss,” he said, tapping his chest. “Don’t let’s kid ourselves. This is a life-or-death situation. You might know all there is to know about residential real estate and California chic and the lifestyles of the rich and famous. But up here, all that knowledge isn’t worth a damn. On your turf you can do whatever the hell you please and I say, more power to you, ‘You’ve come a long way, baby,’ and all that. But up here, you obey me.”

She was stung by his implication that her field of expertise wasn’t much use outside Beverly Hills. “As I recall, I haven’t tried to usurp your position as the macho provider.”

“Just see that you don’t. In the wilderness there’s no such thing as equality between the sexes.”

He stood up and happened to catch sight of the blanket lying on the foot of the bed. “One more thing: No more silly screens. The cabin is too small and we’re living too close together to play coy games like that. We’ve seen each other naked. We’ve touched each other naked. There’re no more secrets. Besides,” he said, raking his eyes over her, “if I wanted you bad enough, no damn blanket would keep me from you. And if rape was what I had in mind, I would have done it a long time ago.”

Their eyes locked and held. Finally, he turned his back. “It’s time you got up. I’ve already started the coffee.”

That morning the oatmeal was considerably better than it had been the day before. At least it didn’t stick to the palate like a day-old peanut-butter sandwich. It had been frugally seasoned with salt and sugar. Cooper ate every bite of his, but didn’t offer her a compliment.

She didn’t take umbrage as she once would have done. His failure to criticize was tantamount to a compliment. They had only promised not to be verbally abusive; they hadn’t promised to shower each other with flattery.

He went outside after breakfast and by the time he came in for a lunch of biscuits and canned soup, he had made himself a pair of snowshoes out of bent greenwood and woven dead vines. He strapped them to his boots and clumped around the cabin, modeling them for her. “These will make it a lot easier to navigate the ravine between here and the river.”

He spent the afternoon away from the cabin. She straightened it, but the housekeeping didn’t take more than half an hour. That left her with nothing to do but fret until she saw him through the window at dusk, making awkward progress toward the cabin in the homemade snowshoes.

She rushed out on the porch to greet him with a cup of hot coffee and a tentative smile, feeling slightly foolish for being so pleased to see him return safe and sound.

Unstrapping the snowshoes and propping them against the cabin’s outside wall, he looked at her strangely and took the proffered coffee. “Thanks.” He stared at her through the cloud of rising steam as he took a sip.

She noticed, as he held the cup to his lips, that they were chapped and that his hands were raw and red despite the shearling gloves he always wore when he was outdoors. She wanted to commiserate, but decided against it. His lecture that morning discouraged anything except mutual tolerance.

“Any luck at the stream?” she asked.

He nodded down toward the creel, which had belonged to the Gawrylows. “It’s full. We’ll leave some out to freeze and save them for days when I can’t get down the ravine. And we should start filling containers with water in case the pump freezes up.”

Nodding, she carried the basket of fish inside, proud of the appetizing aroma of her stew. She had made it with dried beef found among the hermits’ stock of canned food. Its aroma filled the cabin. Cooper ate two full bowls of it and made her day by saying, “Pretty good,” at the conclusion of the meal.

The days followed that basic pattern. He did his chores. She did hers. He helped her with hers. She helped him with his. They were scrupulously polite, if politely distant.

But while they could fill the short days with activity, the evenings seemed endless. They came early. First the sun sank below the tree line and cast the area surrounding the cabin in deep shadow, making outdoor chores hazardous and forcing them indoors.

The instant the sun was swallowed by the horizon, it was dark, even though it was still officially afternoon. Once dinner was eaten and the dishes were washed, there was little to do. There weren’t enough inside chores to keep them occupied and separated. They had nothing to do except stare into the fire and avoid staring at each other—something that required supreme concentration on both their parts.

That first snowfall melted the next day, but the night following that, it snowed again and continued into the day. Because of the steadily dropping temperature and blowing snow, Cooper returned to the cabin earlier than usual, which made the evening stretch out unbearably long.

Rusty, her eyes swinging back and forth like twin pendulums, watched him as he paced the length of the cabin like a caged panther. The four walls were making her claustrophobic, and his restlessness only irritated her further. When she caught him scratching his chin, something she’d noticed him doing repeatedly, she asked with asperity, “What’s the matter?”

He spun around as though spoiling for a fight and delighted that someone had finally picked one with him. “With what?”

“With you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you keep scratching your chin?”

“Because it itches.”

“Itches?”

“The beard. It’s at the itchy stage.”

“Well, that scratching is driving me crazy.”

“Tough.”

“Why don’t you shave it off if it itches?”

“Because I don’t have a razor, that’s why.”

“I—” She broke off when she realized that she was about to make a confession. Then, noticing that his eyes had narrowed suspiciously, she said haughtily. “I do. I have one. I brought it along and now I’ll bet you’re glad I did.”

Leaving her chair near the fireplace, she went to the shelf where she had stored her toiletries. She treasured them as a miser did his bag of gold coins. She brought the plastic, disposable razor back to Cooper. And something else besides. “Put this on your lips.” She passed him the tube of lip gloss. “I noticed that your lips are chapped.”

He took the tube from her and rolled the stick of lip balm out. He seemed pressed to make several comments, but said none of them. She laughed at the awkward way he applied the gloss. When he was done, he handed the capped tube back to her. She gave him the razor. “Be my guest.”

“Thanks.” He turned the razor over in his hand, studying it from every angle. “You didn’t by chance sneak some hand lotion, too, did you?”

She held up her hands. Like his, they had been ravaged by water, wind and cold. “Do these look like they’ve seen any lotion lately?”

His smiles were so rare that her heart melted beneath the one he flashed her now. Then, in what seemed like a reflexive gesture, he captured one of her hands and lightly kissed the backs of her fingers with lips made soft by shiny gloss.

His mustache tickled her fingers. And in a bizarre correlation that made absolutely no sense, it tickled the back of her throat as well. Her stomach executed a series of somersaults.

Suddenly realizing what he’d done, he dropped her hand. “I’ll use the razor in the morning.”

Rusty hadn’t wanted him to let go of her hand. In fact, she’d been tempted to turn it and cover his mustache and lips with her palm. She wanted to feel their caress in that vulnerable spot. Her heart was pounding so hard she had difficulty speaking. “Why not shave now?”

“There’s no mirror. With this much stubble, I’d lacerate myself.”

“I could shave you.”

For a moment neither of them said anything, only filled the narrow space between them with leaping arcs of sexual electricity. Rusty didn’t know where the impulse had sprung from. It had just popped up from nowhere and she’d acted on it before thinking—maybe because it had been days since they’d touched each other for any reason. She was feeling deprived. As the body gets hungry for a certain food when it needs the vitamins and minerals it contains, she’d unconsciously expressed her desire to touch him.

“All right.” Cooper’s permission was granted in a ragged voice.

Nervous, now that he had agreed to her suggestion, she clasped her hands at her waist. “Why...why don’t you sit over there by the fire. I’ll bring the stuff.”

“Okay.”

“Roll the collar of your shirt in and tuck a towel inside,” she said over her shoulder as she poured water from the kettle on the stove into a shallow bowl. She pulled a chair up close to his and set the bowl and razor on the seat. She also got her bar of soap from the shelf, and a spare towel.

“I’d better soak it first.” He dipped the extra towel into the bowl of hot water. “Ouch, damn,” he cursed when he tried to wring it out.

“It’s hot.”

“No foolin’?”

He juggled the scalding towel from one hand to the other before finally slapping it against the lower portion of his face, letting out a yelp when he did so. He held it there, although Rusty didn’t know how he could stand it.

“Doesn’t that burn?” Without removing the towel, he nodded solemnly. “You do it to soften the whiskers, right?” Again, he nodded. “I’ll try to work up a good lather.”

Tentatively she wet her hands in the bowl of hot water and picked up the cake of soap. Cooper watched her every move as she rubbed the soap between her hands until they were covered with honeysuckle-scented suds. The foam looked rich and creamy as she slid it between her palms. It oozed between her fingers, looking intensely sexy, although exactly why, he didn’t know.

“Whenever you’re ready,” she said, moving behind him.

Gradually Cooper lowered the towel. Just as gradually, Rusty raised her hands to his face. Gazing down at him from her position above and behind him, the planes and ridges of his face looked even more harsh, more pronounced. But there was a vulnerability to his eyelashes that gave her enough courage to lay her palms against his prickly cheeks.

She felt him tense up in reaction to her touch. She didn’t move her hands at first, but kept them still, resting lightly against his cheeks, while she waited to see if he was going to tell her that this wasn’t a good idea.

It was a given that it wasn’t a good idea.

She just wondered which one of them was going to admit it first and call a halt to the proceedings. But Cooper said nothing, and she didn’t want to stop, so she began to rotate her hands over his cheeks.

The sensation of that scratchy surface against her palms was enticing. She moved her hands to encompass more area and found that the bones of his jaw were just as chiseled and rigid to the touch as they looked. His square chin had a shallow indentation in its center. She slipped the edge of her fingernail into it, but didn’t investigate it nearly as long as she wanted to.

She ran her hands simultaneously down his throat, smoothing on the lather as she went. Her fingers glided over his Adam’s apple and toward the base of his neck, where she felt his pulse pounding. Dragging her fingers back up his neck and over his chin again, she encountered his lower lip and, beyond it, the brush of his mustache.

She froze and drew in a quick, hopefully inaudible breath. “Sorry,” she murmured. Removing her hands, she dipped them in the water to rinse them off. She leaned forward and inspected her handiwork from another angle. There was a speck of soap on his lower lip and some bubbles clinging to several of the blond hairs in his mustache.

With her wet finger, she whisked away that speck from his lip, then rubbed her finger over his mustache until the bubbles disappeared.

A low sound emanated from him. Rusty froze, but her eyes flew to his. “Get on with it,” he growled.

With his face partially obscured by white foam, he shouldn’t have posed any threat. But his eyes were alight.

They glittered in the firelight. She could see the flames dancing in their depths and sensed a coiled violence over which he exercised tenuous control. It prompted her to step behind him again and out of harm’s way.

“Don’t cut me,” he warned as she lifted the razor to his jaw.

“I won’t if you’ll be still and shut up.”

“Have you ever done this before?”

“No.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

He stopped talking as she drew the first swipe up his cheek. “So far so good,” she said softly as she dipped the razor in the bowl. He mumbled something, trying to keep his mouth still, but Rusty didn’t catch what he said. She was concentrating too hard on giving him a clean shave without nicking his skin. When the lower part of his face was clean, she let out a deep sigh of relief and satisfaction. “Smooth as a baby’s bottom.”

A laugh rolled up from the depths of his chest. Rusty had never heard him actually laugh with pure humor before. His infrequent laughs were usually tinged with cynicism. “Don’t start bragging yet. You’re not finished. Don’t forget my neck. And for God sake, be careful with that blade.”

“It’s not that sharp.”

“That’s the worst kind.”

She swished the razor in the water to dampen it, then placed one hand beneath his chin. “Tilt your head back.”

He did. It rested heavily against her breasts. Rusty, unable to move for a moment, kept the razor poised above his throat. His Adam’s apple bobbed with a hard, involuntary swallow. To take her mind off their position, she turned her attention to the task at hand, which only made matters worse. She had to come up on her toes and lean forward to see well. By the time she’d shaved his neck clean, his head was cushioned between her breasts and they were both keenly aware of it.

“There.” She stepped back and dropped the razor as though it were the single piece of incriminating evidence in a murder trial.

He yanked the towel out of his collar and buried his face in it. For what seemed like hours he didn’t move or lower the towel.

“How does it feel?” she asked.

“Great. It feels great.”

Then, he stood up abruptly and tossed the towel onto the chair. Tearing his coat from the peg near the door, he pulled it on, ruthlessly shoving his arms into the sleeves.

“Where are you going?” Rusty asked anxiously.

“Outside.”

“What for?”

He shot her a sizzling glance that wasn’t in keeping with the blizzard blowing beyond the open door. “Believe me, you don’t want to know.”

He continued to behave in that volatile manner until noon the next day. All morning the weather had been prohibitive to beast and man, so they’d been snowbound in the cabin. For the most part, Cooper ignored her. She responded in kind. After several unsuccessful attempts to make conversation with him, she gave up and lapsed into a moody silence that matched his.

It was a relief when the snowy wind stopped its incessant howling and he announced that he was going out to take a look around. She was concerned for his safety, but refrained from persuading him to stay indoors. They needed the breathing space away from each other.

Besides, she needed some privacy. Cooper wasn’t the only one who’d been itching lately. The incision on her leg was giving her fits. As the skin began to knit, it had become tight and dry. Her clothing only aggravated it further. She decided that the stitches had to come out. She also decided that she was going to pull them out herself rather than involve Cooper, especially since their relationship was so rocky and his mood shifts so unpredictable.

He’d been gone only a few minutes when she stripped off all her clothes, having decided to use this opportunity to give herself a thorough sponge bath. When she finished washing, she sat down in front of the fire, wrapped in a blanket for warmth. She propped her injured leg over the knee of the other and examined it. How hard could it be to clip those stitches and pull them out?

Where before, the thought would have given her qualms the size of goose eggs, she approached the chore pragmatically. The first obstacle was to find something to clip the silk stitches with. The knife Cooper had given her was too cumbersome. The only thing in the cabin sharp enough and delicate enough was her razor.

It had seemed like a good idea, but when she held the razor lengthwise over the first stitch, poised and ready to saw into it, she realized that her hand was perspiring with apprehension. Drawing a deep breath, she touched the silk thread with the razor.

The door burst open and Cooper tramped through it, snowshoes and all. He’d covered his head with a fur pelt and was bundled up from his neck to his boots. His own breath had frozen on his mustache, making it appear ghostly white. Rusty emitted a squeak of alarm and momentary fright.

But her surprise couldn’t compare to his. She was just as supernatural a vision as he, in an entirely different way. Silhouetted as she was against the fireplace, the flames shone through her hair. One leg was propped up, exposing a tantalizing length of naked thigh. The blanket she’d wrapped herself in after her sponge bath had slipped off her shoulder, revealing most of one breast. As his eyes fastened on it, the nipple grew taut with the chilly air he was letting in.

He closed the door. “What the hell are you doing sitting there like that?”

“I thought you’d be gone longer.”

“I could have been anybody,” he roared.

“Like who?”

“Like...like...”

Hell, he couldn’t think of a single other person who might have barged in the way he just had, never guessing that he’d find a breathtaking sight like this one in a rude cabin in the Canadian wilds. He felt the front of his pants strain with his instant erection. Either she genuinely had no idea what effect she had on him, or she did know and was maliciously using it to slowly drive him crazy. Whichever, the result was the same.

Frustrated, he tore the pelt from his head and shook snow out of it. Gloves went flying. He tore at the tongs tying on his snowshoes. “Back to my original question, what the hell are you doing?”

“Taking my stitches out.”

The peg in the wall caught the coat he tossed in that general direction. “What?”

His stance—that know-it-all, arrogant, condescending, masculine stance—grated on her like a pumice stone. Not to mention his superior tone of voice. She looked him directly in the eye. “They’re itching. The wound has closed. It’s time they came out.”

“And you’re using a razor?”

“What do you suggest?”

He crossed the floor in three angry strides, pulling his hunting knife from its scabbard as he came. When he dropped to his knees in front of her, she recoiled and drew the blanket tightly around herself. “You can’t use that!”

His expression was forbearing as he unscrewed the handle of his knife and shook out several implements that Rusty hadn’t known until now were in there. Among them was a tiny pair of scissors. Instead of being pleased, she was furious: “If you had those all along, why did you cut my fingernails with that bowie knife?”

“I felt like it. Now, give me your leg.” He extended his hand.

“I’ll do it.”

“Give me your leg.” He enunciated each word as he glared up at her from beneath his brows. “If you don’t, I’ll reach into that blanket and bring it out myself.” His voice dropped to a seductive pitch. “No telling what I might encounter before I find it.”

Mutinously she thrust her bare leg out from under the blanket. “Thank you,” he said sarcastically.

“Your mustache is dripping on me.”

The frost was beginning to melt. He wiped it dry on his shirt sleeve, but he didn’t release her bare foot. It looked small and pale in his large hand. Rusty loved the feeling, but she fought against enjoying it. She waged a war within when he tucked her heel into the notch of his thighs. She gasped over the firm, solid bulge that filled her arch.

He raised sardonic eyes up to hers. “What’s the matter?”

He was daring her to tell him. She would die before she even let him know she had noticed. “Nothing,” she said nonchalantly. “Your hands are cold, that’s all.”

The glint in his eyes told her that he knew she was lying. Grinning, he bent his head to his task. Clipping the silk threads presented no problems to either of them. Rusty was thinking that she could just as easily have done it herself. But when he picked up a small pair of tweezers and pinched the first clipped thread between them, she realized that the worst was yet to come.

“This won’t hurt, but it might sting a little,” he cautioned. He gave one swift tug to pull the stitch out. Reflexively Rusty’s foot made a braking motion against him.

“Ah, God,” he groaned. “Don’t do that.”

No, she wouldn’t. She definitely would not. She would keep her foot as still as stone from now on, even if he had to tear the stitches out with his teeth.

By the time the tweezers had picked the last thread out, tears of tension and anxiety had filled her eyes. He’d been as gentle as he could be, and Rusty was grateful, but it hadn’t been pleasant. She laid her hand on his shoulder. “Thanks, Cooper.”

He shrugged her hand off. “Get dressed. And hurry up with dinner,” he ordered with the graciousness of a caveman. “I’m starving.”

Soon after that, he started drinking.